Contents

History

Natasha Vita-More explains in 'Radical Life Extension Leadership' how the coalition and RAAD Fest were founded:[1]

The launching of what became known as the RAADFest was due to bit of happenstance of one single off-the-cuff introduction and a series of intended introductions to broaden the scope of individual groups of people.

How did it come about—how did we join forces?

In the winter of 2012, after moving to Scottsdale, Arizona, Joan Foltz, a colleague from graduate school suggested I get in touch with the founder of FabCom, a local Scottsdale marketing company. She happened to have a cabin in the mountains near his and thought that he would be a good connection for me. At her prompting, I set up a meeting with Brian Fabiano of FabCom. At the meeting, we talked about marketing in general. We discussed multi-media tech advances from chemistry to digitality, and how high 8 mm film medium of the 1970 evolved into to current HD video options. Nearing the end of our exchange, I explained how I had been involved in the life extension.

I could sense him searching his mind to form a connection with my interests and his marketing company. In truth, there was none, and his receptionist did not tell him why I was meeting with him, and instead of his thinking I wanted to hire him, I was there to invite him to give a talk on marketing to my graduate students. In any case, there was no harm and eventually Fabiano asked if I knew Joe Bardin (whose company Relativity Writing is affiliated with FabCom) and who is also an advocate of life extension.

On June 6, 2013, I met with Bardin for lunch and over the years I learned that Bardin has a strong interest in the science of life extension and also takes a transhumanist stance. He is the Director of Communications for RAADfest whose aim is “to help make the scientists and life hackers who are dedicated to super longevity into the celebrities they ought to be” (Bardin, 2018).

Bardin introduced me to Jim Strole and Bernadeane co-founders of People Unlimited, whose leadership recognized a need for inspiration and community for life extensionists. We all met with Max More, CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation and talked about diverse processes for overcoming death.

That Fall of 2015, I invited Strole to a large life extensionist annual event in Southern California and introduced him to David Kekich of Maximum Life Foundation founder and cryonicist Kat Cotter. Like other events in California (Peter Voss and Louise Gold’s cryonics parties), the life extension events were an outgrowth of the CryoFeast we started in Los Angeles for all life extensionists in the mid-90s, especially members of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. The Kekich 2015 event also packed, and press arrived interviewing attendees—transhumanists, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, cryonicists, innovators, scientists, technologists and thought leaders of life extension.

The more I got to know Strole, the more I appreciated his willingness to meet others within the cross-disciplinary fields of life extension. Like Kekich and others, we continue to uncover projects, people, and organizations that help bring people together within the larger community of life extension. My motivation was and still is due to a concern that knowledge about life extension sciences and technologies are tools and their ethical use is pertinent to a safe and healthy human future. As such, we all need to continually educate ourselves about advances in science and technology, and human awareness (mindful psychology).

In June of 2016, Celia Black, founder of the BRINK Institute and former CMO of Kurzweil Technologies organized a conference in Palm Springs and invited a large group of life extensionists, futurists, scientists and technologists. I thought Strole would be interested, since he enjoyed the Kekich event and sent him a link to the conference. The lineup of speakers was exceptional, with a focus on makers, doers and disrupters who are shaping the future. It was at this BRINK Institute event that Kekich and Strole pulled together a small group of people to meet to talk about a joint-organization conference. About eight of BRINK’s guests attended. Most had already been involved with putting on conferences for a long time, and the input was exceptional. Eventually I was asked to be on the Steering Committee. I agreed if the name of the event was not tied to any one organization but was a community effort and that the title of the event be based on the phrase we had long been using “radical life extension”. The Coalition for Radical Life Extension was formed as a nonprofit in 2015 and established the first RAADFest (Revolution Against Aging and Death) in September of 2016.

On the Coalition’s Board of Directors, is “… Bill Andrews, one of the more rigorous and skeptical scientists working in the super longevity. … Director James Strole is one of them. His pantry is literally stacked with shelf after shelf of evidence-based products, many of them from our good friends at Life Extension Foundation, and through his role of Director of RAADfest, he is privy to information about cutting edge protocols, which he shares generously” (Bardin, 2018).

The RAADFest has become a fun-filled and informative event, thanks to all the people who brought others together. Many members of our extended transhumanist community have attended and been keynotes, and Humanity+’s Board members—Ben Goertzel, Jose Cordeiro, David Wood and I have all given talks. Alcor Life Extension Foundation has provided many of the speakers, far more than Humanity+, with Greg Fahy, Max More, Bill Faloon, Ray Kurzweil, David Kekich, Aubrey de Grey, Michael Rose, Maria Entraigues-Abramson, Peter Voss, Neal Van Deveree and others. With the insights of the key entrepreneurs of life extension, outside Humanity+ and the larger transhumanist community, expanding to People Unlimite’s speakers Jim Strole, Bernadine, Joe Bardin, Bill Andrews, Ilana Lea, Liz Perish. These groups and their combined talents are influencing the underbelly of the RAADFest.

The RAADFest Coalition team have done a marvelous job at organizing and promoting the event and reaching into the long-standing extended family of scientists, technologists, and educators of how to live longer and healthier.